Slow down, or even dump, the Kavanaugh nomination

Seeing as yesterday’s Ford-Kavanaugh testimony occurred overnight, I have only been checking the highlights today. It is powerful.

I really don’t see at this point how Republicans can proceed to vote on his nomination without an FBI investigation. They likely will, of course, given how ruthlessly they pursue Supreme Court seats, but I would think they would want it as a way to remove doubts about Kavanaugh, since they believe so strongly that he did nothing wrong. Obviously that investigation would have to include Kavanaugh’s friend, Mark Judge. This is not a clean he said, she said, because she has maintained from the beginning that there is an eyewitness – and not necessarily one in her favor.

Sorry, but if Kavanaugh feels persecuted, I just don’t have much sympathy for him. His history as part of Ken Starr’s Whitewater, then later Monica Lewinsky, investigation team speaks for itself. He had no problem with a relentless investigation of a sexual matter then. Does he regret it now? And that was consensual, supposedly, unlike what he’s accused of. (That said, I have little patience for Democrats who continue to defend Bill Clinton. He grossly abused his position and power with Monica Lewinsky in ways that seem so clear to many Democrats now, just so long as it isn’t Clinton we’re talking about.)

Really, at this point, do Republicans not have someone else they can nominate? I mean, they’ve already proven that they do. Just look at the way that Mitch McConnell engineered the seat for Neil Gorsuch and was able to jam him through. They’ve gotten an approval before. Find someone besides Kavanaugh.

Finally, like the Trump election proved that the Electoral College is an obsolete relic by allowing the candidate with fewer votes to win, lifetime appointments to the Supreme Court are a relic. We need a fixed term, just like every other government office – maybe 15 or 20 years. That’s plenty of time for a justice to retain a level of independence, but still limit the power of a single individual over American life.